


of learning and acceptance (should've raised a baby girl)

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Acceptance, Coming Out, Family Feels, Future Fic, Gen, Questioning, Sibling Love, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: Marinette gets her dream life. Two sons, one daughter. Everything is perfect, right?Not for the middle child, Louis. Being a son feels like a prison.Marinette has two daughters and a son. Yes.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emma Agreste & Hugo Agreste & Louis Agreste & Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Louis Agreste & Original Character(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62





	of learning and acceptance (should've raised a baby girl)

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on the [Miraculous Fanworks server](https://discord.gg/wcQvjyg) proposed the idea of transfem!Louis. I immediately attached to it.
> 
> This fic really is just me wanting a loving and accepting family that would accept me wholeheartedly if I came out as nonbinary...does the wistfulness show?
> 
> Warnings: unintentional misgendering (before she comes out, people misgender her), dysphoria, internalized transphobia
> 
> Parenthetical part of title from "Mama" by MCR.

She looks up to see Em, standing in front of her.

"L? Are you okay?"

She looks down at the skirt she's wearing. A bit of joy flows through her, and then she remembers the mirror.

"It's Lenore," she answers. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this."

* * *

Louis is ten when he flinches. This, in and of itself, would not be unusual if not for the context.

Em (rarely Emilie,  _ never  _ Emma) says one day (after Hugo manages to skip two grades), "You know, you'll always be my little brother."

He flinches, too young to think about the implications of wanting to be Em's little  _ sister  _ instead.

Maman compliments him sometimes about Hugo, who's only six and yet is so much smarter than he ever could be. She calls him a good big brother. 

It makes Louis sick. But he doesn't know why.

* * *

The name Louis makes his stomach turn. Writing it, reading it, hearing it, introducing himself…

The next school year comes, and he'll turn fourteen soon, and the roll call comes around and he's the first one-

"Louis Agreste?"

He can't stand his own name, he's weak pathetic mean for rejecting what Mom gave him-

"Here," he answers, taking control of himself. 

"Is there something you'd prefer to be called?" the teacher asks, pen poised over his clipboard. It comes to him in a flash.

"L," he answers. His best friend, Madeline Couffaine-Lavillant, looks over at him. "I want to be called L, please."

It's strange and different, but it feels better than Louis.

Madeline is over at their house, staying for dinner while Uncle Luka catches up with Aunts Rose and Juleka.

"Madeline! Louis! Dinner's ready!" Papa calls. He tries to resist flinching at the name.

Clearly, he failed, because Madeline says, "You didn't tell them, L?"

"Why would I?" he asks, shrugging. It's been a few months since he started going by just L. He hasn't told Maman and Papa. He still sometimes feels guilty about rejecting the name they gave him, but he remembers when Em started refusing to be called Emma, and Maman & Papa adjusted then. It's deeper, though, than a simple nickname. He hadn't realized that until now.

But he tells them when they ask why Madeline calls him L instead of Louis, that he feels like L fits him better.

And although they call him Louis when he's getting scolded, and when he writes his full name on things that need more than just a nickname he winces, it feels better. Not perfect, but better than before.

* * *

He feels imprisoned by the language he speaks. Forced into a cage of "he" and -eux and words without the e.

He doesn't slip up between the genders of words, that's a juvenile error and he's fifteen and he should be above this.

So when he has to write a personal identity essay for a start-of-lycée French exam, he haphazardly proofreads it instead of going over it in more detail.

He doesn't realize that he used all feminine forms of adjectives and the verbs that need it until he gets it back.

He gets an 85 on the paper for it, a point docked for each mistake. The teacher asks L to see her on L's own time.

He stops in during lunch.

"Your paper was exceptionally well-written, L, except for the use of the feminine form. Everything else was gendered correctly. I don't understand. Was that some kind of a joke? I need you to take this class seriously, and if you legitimately don't we can talk with you and your parents about why not-"

He can't help the tears that start leaking out.

"Oh," the teacher says, as though she knows something that he (?) doesn't. "I'm sorry. Do you want to see the counselor?"

"It was an accident, I swear, I didn't even know I-"

"Don't worry. I'm not changing your grade, but would you prefer to use them?"

_ Yes, very much so,  _ he (?) thinks, but the words scatter when he (?) tries to say them, so instead nodding.

"Then I won't dock points again for it, L." The teacher smiles, as though it were that simple. "The grade on the exam is final, unfortunately, but if it helps you then yes."

"D-don't tell anyone. Please," he (?) manages to get out. "I wasn't ready. I'm still not even sure."

"L is a wonderful student. She may be quiet, but she's one of the best in the class, and very creative."

He (?) blinks. It sounds...good. It sounds good to be referred to as "she." L feels happy. 

She smiles. "Thank you, Mme."

"Have a nice day, L.

(S)he starts researching female names.

_ Lenore  _ calls out to her (?) like a siren song. 

The doubts start flooding in again, just like when (s)he started going by L.

But  _ Lenore Agreste  _ sounds like music to her/his ears. As long as (s)he keeps going by L, (s)he can pretend.

* * *

There's a whole community out there of people like her. She discovers the word "transgender" on her sixteenth birthday. A whole group of people born in the wrong body like her actually exists. She isn't alone. She never was.

She also learns about dysphoria, and deadnames, and misgendering. And  _ oh,  _ that's that dissonant feeling she gets when she looks in the mirror, when she's called Louis, when they use he/him pronouns for her.

She's been growing out her hair. Small mercies. Em loves it, loves getting to style L's hair, even if she still thinks that she's just a guy growing out his hair.

A few months pass. Em's staying over with one of her friends, she thinks, feeling a little overwhelmed and hysterical. Lenore wants more than anything to be a girl. She's too much of a coward to make any of the skirt or dress designs that seem to be all she can put in her sketchbook lately, but she can maybe steal something from Em's closet. They're close enough where she'll fit, and Em rarely wears skirts, so she won't even notice.

Em isn't in her room when Lenore enters,

She searches through Em's closet, pulling out a skirt. She puts it on and twirls, feeling happy feminine free-

And then she catches a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror in Em's room, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

Stupid stupid  _ stupid,  _ shouldn't have looked in the mirror and ruined everything-

And that's how Em finds her, crying on the floor, and she tells Em her long buried secret.

"Okay, Lenore," Em says, reaching her hand out. She takes it and gets up.

"I'm not your brother, Em," she says in a too-deep voice. "I can't be your little brother anymore."

"Of course not, L," she answers. "You're my little sister."

Lenore reaches out to hug her. "Thank you. I'm sorry I raised your closet."

"You could have told me, you know that, right L? A friend of mine is like you, but the opposite. I should introduce you two."

She nods, still feeling warmth and love. "I didn't want you to find out like this."

"Am I the first to know?"

"In our family? Yeah. One of my teachers found out at the beginning of school when I used all feminine adjectives and called me out."

"Oh. You're amazing, Lenore. Brother or sister. There are very few things you could do to make me stop loving you. Being a girl is not one of them."

She sniffles. "Thank you, Em."

* * *

She gets a little bolder after that.

She starts making all the designs that have been clogging up her sketchbook on the communal sewing machine, the patchwork of scrap fabric working perfectly.

She models them for Em, who keeps telling her to tell Maman and Papa, that they'll support her.

She eventually tells Madeline, whose support flows out as soon as she does.

Coming out to Hugo is tough. They aren't as close as her and Em are, with a larger age gap between them - as well as their fundamental differences in personality, with her as the creative sibling and him as the smart sibling.

"Hugo, I have something important to tell you," she says one afternoon, when Em is out with her friends and Maman and Papa are still at work.

He adjusts his glasses slightly. He seems really secure, but that's one of his nervousness tells. "Is it that you're a girl?" His tone is nonchalant. "Because I figured that out a while ago. You always flinch when Maman or Papa uses your given name, and I also noticed all the outfits you've been making over the past few months. Do you have a name that you would prefer me to call you in private?"

"I-I," she should have been more careful, should have hidden better…

"If it's any consolation, I doubt Maman and Papa know," he says, adjusting his glasses again.

"Lenore," she declares. "That's my name."

"Thank you for trusting me, Lenore." It feels like acceptance, in Hugo's own way.

Em goes to university before she comes out to Maman and Papa. They send her off.

"Len, you should. You're out to most of the people that matter, and some that don't. For goodness's sake, you came out to Aunts Rose and Juleka already!"

"They're more distant. Their acceptance doesn't matter as much. If they don't accept me, that doesn't matter. If Maman and Papa don't, it'll break me. Mom's always told me that this exact family has been her dream since she was fourteen, hamster and all. I can't wreck that by being their daughter instead of their son."

"You deserve to be happy, Len. You shouldn't have to hide around them."

She gets out of the embrace. "I'll see you during winter break, Em."

As she walks away, she hears Em call, "You should really think about it, L!"

"What does she want you to think about?" Maman asks.

"Nothing." She sags, feeling embarrassed.

Hugo looks at her in a way that implies that he knows exactly what they were talking about, but it's more plaintive and emotional than he usually gets with her.

They eat dinner that night, and it's quiet, too quiet.

She heads back up to her room to sleep that night, but she can't sleep, so she leaves her room - and hears her parents talking in their bedroom.

"I'm worried about Louis." Maman. She winces at being called Louis again.

"Me too. He and Emilie have always been close, and I don't know how her being gone will affect him."

She can't listen to it anymore. She sneaks back to her room to grab one of her projects in progress, and down to the sewing machine for some late-night creativity. It helps her calm down, doing something with her hands.

"L," she hears nearby, "you should really go back to sleep."

"Maman," she announces, "I'm a girl,"

Maman looks crestfallen for a second, but embraces her,

"Girl or boy, you're always my child."

She tries not to cry. "Thanks, Maman."

They stay in the hug for a bit.

She gets out of it. "My name is Lenore."

"Okay. Should I tell Papa?"

"I want to do it myself," she says, a new resolve flowing through her.

"You should sleep, dear," Maman tells her, stroking her hair as she does so. "You can tell Papa in the morning, when you have more rest."

She pauses. Exhaustion sinks into her. They head back up the stairs.

"Good night, Maman."

"Good night, Lenore."

Maman called her Lenore.  _ Yeah.  _

* * *

She wakes up the next morning, and the events of last night come back in a flash of memory.

She came out to Maman, okay, good. Maman took it well, and she was the one that pictured the family as it was when she was a teenager.

Coming out to Papa should therefore be easier, but it feels just as daunting.

The scent of pancakes wafts into her room. Breakfast. She hurries downstairs.

"Hey, Papa," she says, leaning against the counter as he watches the stove. "I'm a girl."

She sees his nod. "Do you have a preferred name?"

"I'm Lenore."

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me online:  
> alto-tenure - main Tumblr  
> the-river-of-light - visual art Tumblr  
> beunforgotten - writing Tumblr  
> riiveroflight - Twitter
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed this story.


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